WISHING ALL MY FRIENDS A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023
The year 2022 has just ended, and this year we saw India emerge as a big economy after the Covid pandemic reduced throughout the world, although its threat still looms. There were many people in India who became NEWSMAKERS, and in this blog, I am writing about women newsmakers of 2022.
Top 5 Women Newsmakers:
1 Droupadi Murmu
She is someone who has broken glass ceilings all her life. She was born in poverty in a Santhali tribal home, located in Uperbeda Panchayat in Odisha’s underdeveloped district of Mayurbhanj. In spite of the odds, she became the first girl in her village to attend college, to complete BA from Rama Devi Women’s College in Bhubaneshwar. After holding a clerical post in the government, she became a teacher and started her political career in the late 90s. She went on to become Jharkhand’s first female governor. The year 2022 can easily be called her best year as she made it the youngest President of India. She is also the first President who was born in independent India. “ My election is proof that the poor in India can fulfill dreams”, she said in her first speech after taking charge as President of India.
2 Madhabi Puri Buch
This graduate from IIM-A went on to become India’s first woman to head India’s market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). However, this is not the only first to her credit-she is also the first non-IAS to hold that position. Mandated to regulate the world’s fifth largest stock market, she now faces many challenges, including the post-Covid and post-war volatility in the markets, unprecedented numbers of retail investors in equity markets, and the entry of new-age internet companies into the exchange.
“Without Industry support, it is difficult for SEBI to get rid of all evils that we know off- front running, insider trading, information asymmetry, fraudulent transactions, and manipulations of stock prices. I do not think that we can claim that we have rid the market of its own peculiar versions of smallpox and polio,” she said in one of her first addresses as SEBI head. Promising that she will help aid capital formation in equity and debt, Buch is also tightening the rules around the alternate investment funds (ATF).
3 Samantha Ruth Prabhu
Before May 2022, except for the people of the Southern part of India, no one else knew who is she. But the web series Family Man 2 changed everything for her. Her de-glam role as a terrorist in the web series ensured that she is now a famous personality pan India. She also created waves with her item song ‘Oo Antava’ in Pushpa. The song became one of the most streamed songs of 2022 and made her popularity soar. So much so, she became the most popular female star in 2022 as per Ormax beating Alia Bhatt and South superstar Nayantara.
She won the hearts of many with her unaffected comments on the talk show ‘Koffee with Karan’-be it her candid responses on the status of her recent divorce or calling her Pushpa song a critique on the male gaze. She also spoke about her battle with an auto-immune disease ‘Myositis’ and received rare reviews for her latest thriller Yashoda, where she plays an undercover police trainee.
4 Falguni Nayar
The investment banker turned entrepreneur became the latest woman to enter the list of billionaires, after she listed her company FSN E-Commerce Ventures which runs Nykaa-online retailer of beauty and fashion products. She went on to top the Hurun list of female Indian self-made billionaires, displacing Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, who had held on to that position for many years.
This, however, is only one side of the story. Since listing last year Nykaa stock, like most new-age companies, lost its sheen with investors. As the stock declined by 56% since the start of last year, so did Nayar’s wealth-from $ 6.5 billion in late 2021 to around $2.4 billion in Dec 2022. Even though she retained her billionaire status, she also came under the scanner for trying to prop up her stock price by issuing bonus shares- a practice that touches the grey area in terms of corporate governance slip-ups.
5 Jhulan Goswami
The 39-year-old cricketer retired from international cricket in the year 2022. But not before creating history by breaking a 34-year-old record to become the highest wicket-taker in ICC Women’s World Cup- with 43 wickets in total. Even more impressive is the fact that Goswami who started off in 2002, had a glorious 20-year career- a rare feat for a female cricketer. She played in 12 tests, 204 one-day internationals, and 68 T20Is. The right-arm medium fast bowler and the right-hand batter have picked up 355 wickets across all formats in her international career.
Along with Mithali Raj, she has played a key role in the growth of female cricket in India, which reached a state of maturity in 2022 with gender pay parity. Her exit is being considered the end of an era by many experts and players, though she will continue to remain the mentor-cum-player for Bengal’s cricket team- a role she took up four months before retirement. Though she herself was never a part of controversies, a lot of media outrage took place around her biopic movie called ‘ Chakda Xpress’ where Anushka Sharma is playing Jhulan Goswami, with people commenting that Anushka hardly resembles Jhulan in real life, as Anushka is very fair, and Jhulan is not at all fair skin.
Please mail your views/comments.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
2nd January 2023